


Heart's Threshold

by yet_intrepid



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Background Relationships, Bechdel Test Pass, Canon Compliant, Gen, Minor Leia Organa/Han Solo, Minor Padmé Amidala/Anakin Skywalker, POV Female Character, Star Wars: The Force Awakens Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-26
Updated: 2015-12-26
Packaged: 2018-05-09 10:07:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,079
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5535896
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yet_intrepid/pseuds/yet_intrepid
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They all seem to end up on her doorstep: stranded folk, fugitives, refugees. Every time, Shmi thinks about turning them away. She is only a slave, after all, and she has a child to think of.</p>
<p>She never turns them away.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Heart's Threshold

**Author's Note:**

  * For [nimueailinen](https://archiveofourown.org/users/nimueailinen/gifts), [vinrebelle](https://archiveofourown.org/users/vinrebelle/gifts), [megster](https://archiveofourown.org/users/megster/gifts).



> Merry Christmas to my terrible friends; may they have a New Year full of their favorite sads.

They all seem to end up on her doorstep: stranded folk, fugitives, refugees. Every time, Shmi thinks about turning them away. She is only a slave, after all, and she has a child to think of.

She never turns them away.

 “Mom,” Ani says, as they bandage up a Togruta who stumbled bleeding into the slave complex—from a crash, Shmi thinks, although she can’t be sure. “Mom, don’t you have to go to Mos Eisley in the morning?”

Shmi looks up a moment from her careful work. Anakin’s brow is creased, his eyes layered with concerns too dark for his seven years. “Don’t worry, skychild,” she says. “I’ll find her somewhere to go before I leave.”

Ani purses his lips and looks off doubtfully to the side. “Do you know her?” he asks.

“No,” says Shmi.

“Then why,” Anakin starts, and then stops, gesturing helplessly.

“Because I know she needs help,” Shmi says. She layers a strip from their last bacta patch over a cut on the Togruta’s left lek, then turns to lift her son’s chin. “Ani,” she says. “There’s one problem in this galaxy that’s bigger than all the rest of them. Do you know what?”

Anakin wrinkles his brow again. “Slavery?”

Shmi’s heart clenches. “That’s a big one,” she says. “But this is something that helps slavery to keep going, and lots of other bad things too.” He’s wide-eyed, so she goes on. “The problem is nobody helps each other. If we all helped each other, we would be strong enough to fix so many things. That’s why I made a commitment to help as many people as I can.”

Anakin nods seriously. After a minute, though, confusion wins out on his face. “What’s a commitment?”

“It’s like a promise,” Shmi says. “I made a promise to myself.”

Anakin looks over at the Togruta on Shmi’s bed. “I could take care of her,” he says, quietly. “If you need me to. I could help.”

Shmi draws him close, pressing a kiss to the top of his head. “The way you can help me best right now,” she says, “is by taking care of yourself while I’m gone.”

“I will, Mom,” says Anakin. “I’ll help; I’ll fix things. I promise.”

They all seem to end up on her doorstep: stranded Jedi, fugitive queens, refugees. Shmi thinks of her child’s promise, and she does not turn them away.

\----

He ends up on her doorstep, over and over, in the winter Coruscant night. Padmé opens the door, letting in swirling snow. Letting in a tall soldier, who still hates the cold as much as he did when he was the small desert child she covered with a blanket.

“Didn’t think I’d find you here,” he says, “since it’s New Year.”

“I have work to do,” says Padmé. She goes back to her desk. “Wars don’t stop for the Fetes.”

“Tell me about it,” says Anakin. He follows her across the room. “What legislation are you working on?”

“Still arguing that we should negotiate with the Separatists, in the end. But at the moment, they’re trying to form a regulatory committee to rework the way legislation is introduced to the Senate, and I’ve been selected for it.”

“Sounds like a hassle,” says Anakin. He floats up her paperweight with the Force, rolling it in the air.

“It _is_ a hassle,” Padmé says. “Wars don’t stop for us to rework our bureaucratic process, especially when half the people on the committee only want to see it made more complicated, and we just have other priorities right now. Like the starving citizens. Like the refugees. Like the body count.”

She’s staring out the window by now, watching snow blow around the high-rise traffic. A firework erupts, spelling a holiday greeting in the air, and she can feel Anakin tense at the explosion.

Still, he comes up behind her, wrapping his arms around her waist. “Always good to hear my safety’s more important to you than finding a new way to file paperwork.”

“Of course it is.” She leans into him. “But not just yours, Ani. Everyone’s. Discussing technicalities while this war ruins lives? That isn’t what I was elected for.”

“I know,” says Anakin. He kisses her temple.

They’re quiet a moment. Then, restless, Padmé moves away. “I hate committees.”

“So run away,” he says. “You’d never have to sit in another useless meeting again.”

She laughs, then, gesturing out at the snow. “In this weather?”

“Okay,” he admits. “Maybe not the best plan.”

She holds out her arms to him again.

He ends up on her doorstep, over and over, and in the winter Coruscant night they take refuge: he from the wars of saber and ship, she from a battlefield more hidden but no less fierce. He ends up on her doorstep, and they shut out the swirling snow.

\----

Leia stands alone on the doorstep.

Her home is gone again. Not, this time, with the death of a planet—she has learned that lesson, not to say _home_ and mean a place that can explode—but with departures.

Ben. Han. Luke.

She had never thought; she could never have dreamed—but she should have, she tells herself. She should have. For call something your home, and you will lose it. Commit your heart to it and it will go.

“General?”

Leia turns. Lieutenant Connix is behind her in the doorway.

“Yes, Lieutenant.”

“There’s news. Coordinated stormtrooper movements in the three different systems.”

Leia closes her eyes. It’s been so long since she’s done this alone, so long since she’s faced down the worst of the galaxy without her husband and brother by her side.

“General?” Lieutenant Connix steps a little closer. “I’m sorry, I don’t mean…I’m sorry. But we need your help.”

And a voice pulls at Leia through the Force—a woman’s voice, one she feels she knows but cannot place. _The biggest problem in this universe_ , it whispers, _is nobody helps each other_.

Leia pulls back her shoulders, draws a steadying breath, and offers her young lieutenant a smile. “I’ll be there,” she says. “Tell the officers we can assemble in three minutes.”

“Yes, General.” Lieutenant Connix salutes and retreats, leaving Leia alone on the doorstep.

She looks out, and she knows: someday Han will end up here again. Luke, too, and Ben. They will stand on the threshold of her heart, asking to come in. Asking for help.

And she will not turn them away.


End file.
